


To and From Darkness

by icedragoned



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Dragons, F/F, Prophecy, Sapphic, Slytherin, weasley - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26779270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedragoned/pseuds/icedragoned
Summary: Set in the Harry Potter world decades after the events of the main books and films.Things have changed - after the descent of Lord Voldemort the wizarding world is fragmented, scared of the appearance of another devastating dark wizard. Great, powerful families have surged from the chaos and taken advantage of the darkness in the PDC - the Potential Dark Children, the wizards rumoured to contain potential for harbouring an Obscurus.A young girl, powerful with foretelling magic but shy and obstinate, is suddenly the object of the daughter of one of the strongest families in existence. They are bound by something more than their mutual obsession, by something more sinister, by the resurgence of the darkness.





	1. I

It would be cold as death. It was death. It would be wet and dry and searingly cold all at the same time. It sliced, or was it that she had been slit?   
She knew she was dreaming, or, rather, swimming in the placenta of her travelling, her curse. But being a vate was not a curse. No, this would be her curse, cut from ear to ear with a great, scarlet smile to adorn her skin forevermore. She’d died alone, but from the threshold where she bled, a girl screamed her name.   
She was dead. 

Olympia woke up screaming.   
In the pale cold of the transitioning morning it was easy to mistake the blue tinged world for death. That was until her father entered her bedroom, denting the wall with the force with which he opened the door.   
“What was it, Oli, what’d you see?” He turned on the golden lights, which contrasted awkwardly with the natural grey seeping in from her window. Feinam Harrenhart plopped down on Olympia’s bed, puff-eyed, bare-footed, and stared worryingly into his daughter’s eyes. She’d only just stopped screaming.   
“I die.” She told him, quite simply, as though commenting on the rather dreadful weather. Her voice was grated with sleep and anguish, but still she’d settled herself down rapidly. Harrenhart enveloped her slim wrist in his own hairy hand and held it there, as though at any moment he’d have to refrain her from leaving.   
“When, my love?” He asked in a small voice.   
“I don’t know.” He dared smile at her, though it was a peculiar, unconvinced and unconvincing smile.   
“Well, we all die, don’t we?”   
“I’ll be murdered.” She stared back at him forcefully, almost pleading, or challenging him to try and make it better. He only looked at her, and brushed stray hair from her face. Her forehead glistened with already cold sweat, her sheets soaked. He was stuck for words, incapable of saying anything that might aid her or add to the situation. So he pressed her to his chest and kissed her icy cheek. 

Feinam Harrenhart sung a cheesy love song to himself two hours later as he prepared breakfast for him and his daughter. He was quite happy to think of her unhesitatingly as his daughter, with no pesky A-word adjective attached to it like a fat leech. The world had melted the bleakness away from the morning and the puddle that remained was one of gold and sunshine. He opened the door to let the smoke ribboning up from the saucepan waft out.   
“Morning,” Olympia smiled as she entered the kitchen, as if they hadn’t woken up hours earlier due to the foretelling of her own death.   
“Morning,” replied her father, just as chirpily. “I got an owl from Mrs Tulle.”   
“Hm?” Olympia fished in the cooled pantry for a bottle of orange juice.   
“She asked me to wish you luck on your last first day.” Oli smiled sadly. She didn’t want to be reminded that this would be the last year in which she’d happily hop along to another start of term at Hogwarts, the last year she wouldn’t be strapped to a chair and have her brain ransacked for visions. Maybe she was a bit dramatic, though.   
“You know what’s curious,” said Harrenhart, “is that seeing Mrs Tulle’s owl reminded me that I haven’t seen Lila’s - or Harriet’s, for that matter.” So there it was. Her father had been inching around the subject for the entire summer. He’d seen her glum return last year and her terrible foreboding of the seventh year to come, completely friendless and dejected, alone in a world that had already found a belonging. She slammed the pantry door shut without any orange juice.   
“They must’ve died over the summer,” she quipped, racing upstairs to get dressed in order to avoid questions. She wasn’t quick enough.   
“Olympia!” Called her father severely just as her foot touched the first step. She slowly inched back, like a dog that’d just eaten a pillow awaiting its punishment.   
Feinam Harrenhart, a tall, slim man with shaggy brown hair and a kind face, the kind of man who looked like your favourite teacher or a volunteer at an animal shelter, was propping himself against the kitchen counter, a pretend stern look plastered on him.   
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”   
“No,” she replied, not unkindly.  
“It’s been bothering you the whole summer, don’t you want to tell me?”   
“You never even liked them, anyways, why do you care?”   
“I obviously don’t care about those mono-neuronal monkeys, I care that you’re upset, that’s all.”   
“I’m not upset. Not anymore. I just want to enjoy my last year and start at the Ministry as soon as I can.” Lies. Blatant lies. As much love as she harboured for Hogwarts, it didn’t fit in her mind how this year might be anything but an utter disaster; and the Ministry was more of a mental institution in her mind.   
Her father hesitated.   
“I’m completely alright. I know I can talk to you, and I will when I’m ready.” He scratched his neck and looked down at the floor, a sign of defeat.   
“Right. Well. That’s what matters, isn’t it? Be down here in fifteen, breakfast is almost ready.” 

As the rickety trolley bustled in her grasp, Olympia’s mind wandered to the letter Mrs Tulle had sent. Her father had pushed it in her face as they were eating their pancakes, and she was rather grateful to have read it - it had given her a warm sense of belonging and accomplishment that she was certain she would need perhaps that very same day.   
Mrs Tulle was a severe and hard-headed woman, but the letter was so mellow and congratulatory it seemed written almost by another person. Somehow Mrs Tulle’s usual sternness gave the words a deeper, more meaningful message.   
Lovely child… Destined for many great things… honour being her governess…   
It’d felt strange at first, having a governess. But her father had insisted that they could afford it, that it was for ‘her better understanding of herself’, whatever that meant.   
She thought of her labouring over textbooks, practicing the same exercises time and time again during the entire summer, how exerting even one hour of studying was to her. She thought of what it would’ve been like being a Dragon child, forced to have not one, but tenths of governesses for different subjects. She’d often envied the intimate knowledge rich families like that seemed to have, but after that summer she wasn’t sure whether she envied them or pitied them. Perhaps both. She thought of Medea, but there was no pity associated with her. 

Oli kissed her father goodbye and held him for too long a time before going through the platform. The roar of the train’s engine greeted her on the other side together with a whip of hot air. She was certain that the Hogwarts Express hadn’t changed since the 90s, probably before that.   
The train whined and groaned as students scurried onto it, afraid it would be off without them. It was late, growing later, and just as Olympia was preparing to dash off together with the rest of the crowd, she caught sight of the trio her eye seemed trained to search for incessantly. Medea, Kavanaugh, and Weasley all stood at an entrance, all laughing and poking at each other. Oli tried to believe that she wasn’t always looking for them, but rather that they were incredibly striking. Weasley looked as though his head had caught on fire, what with his unkempt mane of red hair; Kavanaugh, in stark contrast, had a shock of silky, near-white hair; and Medea always looked as though she’d been wrought in gold, her hair, her skin, her very eyes shone with it. Also, she carried a dragon on her shoulder.

Olympia’s venerating gaze was cut short as they entered the train, and a sharp whistle brought to her attention that it’d leave without her. She hurried within.   
Inside, most students had already found their seats, and as she wandered through the train she found all compartments crammed, and she confirmed her terrible foreboding of the start of a horrible year as she poked her head into a compartment with two professors and asked whether she might sit with them. The two had been deep in conversation, and looked up at her, both startled and annoyed.   
“Nonsense,” said one, professor Stanley, a sour-mouthed woman already in her Hogwarts robes and a blue felt hat. Stanley took Medea by the elbow as if she were no more than a doll and set off to scour the train without a word. She thoroughly examined compartment after compartment, making the same discoveries Medea had until, finally, with a “Ah,” she stopped and rapped at the door of one that wasn’t quite full before opening it.   
Three striking heads turned to look at them. The compartment which had, until moments before, been bursting with laughter, had quietened at once at the sound of Stanley’s knock.   
“Ms Drevenis, Kavanaugh, Weasley, I trust you wouldn’t mind sharing your compartment with Ms Harrenhart?” The three people within seemed seated according to a meticulous plan, as though their very existence were arranged. And so, when both Kavanaugh and Weasley turned to Medea, who was being addressed directly by Mrs Stanley, it seemed almost natural that every eye should be trained on her, awaiting a response even from her and her only though she was only one of the three people mentioned. She smiled coyly, her small, sleeping dragon puffing on her shoulder.   
“Not at all, professor Stanley.” 

The professor patted Olympia on the shoulder and swiftly left for her own compartments, leaving Olympia standing awkwardly at the threshold of their little world, wondering ever so slightly whether now that professor Stanley was gone they’d kick her in the head and force her to sit in the hallway for the rest of the journey. They all stared at one another at a standstill of strange unwanted presence.   
“Well,” said Kavanaugh, slightly impatient, “You coming in or what?”   
“Uh, yeah, sorry.” Olympia sat beside Weasley, right in front of Medea. Weasley politely scooted, a pressed-lip smile on his face. It wasn’t as though any of these people had ever been particularly malicious toward Olympia (though Weasley had accidentally batted a Bludger in her direction during a match), but she was still edgy, as though at any moment they’d slit her from wrist to elbow and perform some sort of strange blood ritual on her. Especially the two in front of her. Although Kavanaugh stared with a scowl, it seemed more a grimace permanently set on his face; Medea was the unsettling one, what with her sweet expression on her unsmiling face.   
“Your name is Olympia, no?” She asked.   
“Right.”   
“I’m Connor, Connor Weasley” said Weasley from beside her with a dopey grin. One look at him and Medea was certain she wouldn’t be murdered right at the moment. Perhaps she was just paranoid over her vision, which she hadn’t even allowed herself to process at all. She shoved it from her mind.   
Kavanaugh rolled his eyes. “Yes, well, everyone knows you’re a Weasley, carrot-head.”   
“I think you’ve got some premature white hairs on your own head,” replied Weasley lightly. The two began bantering, stifling laughter and kicking each other every now and again. Medea did not partake. Amused as Olympia was at these two boys who she usually found so intimidating, she couldn’t help but feel unsettled by Medea steady stare. Olympia looked down at her shoes for a moment, and when she looked up, Medea had leaned forward.   
“You’re a vate, aren’t you?”   
Olympia started. She’d hardly told a soul - only the professors that had to be informed of it knew, and those that hadn’t been informed didn’t even suspect it. Granted, Medea was a Drevenis, and, granted, Medea most likely had had a parade of governesses giving her lessons since before she learned how to crawl. But there was no conceivable way she could’ve known she was a vate from a stare, from a small dialogue. She flashed a look at the two boys beside them, who seemed to be in their own little world, hardly paying attention to them, let alone giving any signs of having overheard Medea’s question. Olympia’s heart sped.   
“Don’t worry about them,” Medea nodded to the people sitting right beside them, who should’ve been hearing them clearly. Drevenis waved a hand beside her and her fingers caught on something. It was only then that Olympia noticed a film-like wall separating them. “They won’t hear us.” If Olympia hadn’t been afraid until then, she was now. Overpowered was the word that came to her mind. Noticing her discomfort, Medea pursed her lips.   
“If it’s a touchy subject I-“   
“No, no,” Oli stammered. “I just… well, how’d you know?” Medea offered her a small smile.   
“I suppose I just do.” Her face betrayed nothing, and, in fact, it made Olympia even more uncomfortable to look at the other girl’s feline green eyes. The dragon stirred. Medea caught Olympia’s nervous glance in its direction.   
“Don’t worry about Serezha, he’s completely harmless.” Olympia felt that a for now had been omitted.   
“I thought only cats and owls-“   
“Special exception, though they might revoke it if he causes any trouble.” She explained nonchalantly. Medea settled her eyes on Olympia. Overpowered. She felt overpowered, and Medea seemed an overpowered character. She extended a long, strong hand.   
“Would you?” She asked, a flame flickering behind her stare. Olympia chewed on her lip.   
“You know, there’s no guarantee anything will happen. Really, it usually never works.”   
“I think it will,” she said with such certainty that even Olympia doubted her own nature. Hesitantly, Oli reached out for her hand, but she didn’t even have to hold it before

Black and blue, white and silver, webs caught under faucets and stars suspended in water. And then, the webs are severed, the stars are snuffed. Black and blue, no white, no silver. Black as darkness, blue as dead lips.   
She screams and there’s blood, seeping, pooling, bubbling from wounds like opening lips, muscle pulling apart. A body like a chopping board, stabbedstabbedstabbed. Stabs and slits and blood like fountains, there seems to be nothing but blood and full darkness, and hollow eyes, and open-veined blue and

Medea pulled her hand away abruptly and undid the veil between them and the other two boys.   
Olympia gasped and shuddered, catching the attention of Connor immediately. He placed his hand on her shoulder as an impulse and looked worryingly at her pale face.   
“Wow, you alright there? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”   
Olympia stared up at Medea, who was looking at her with innocent, concerned eyes. She was so convincing Olympia almost though she’d hallucinated the entire interaction.   
“Right, yes, perfectly fine,” she told Weasley with a weak smile. She slipped another look at Medea, who was already settling into a conversation with Kavanaugh. A woman to fear, thought Olympia.


	2. II

Medea meticulously pulled on her black lace gloves, velvet robes brushing against Connor’s own.   
“You having a hard time at it again?” He murmured to her, making sure none of the students filing to the Thestrals could hear them. She looked up at him sharply, and he caught actual, real emotion in her eyes. Fear, surprise, confusion. He was taken aback.   
“I-“ She stammered, losing her words. She was unsure how she could explain what’d happened in the compartment with Olympia, and less than willing to explain why she’d treated the girl so poorly. Predictably, Olympia had vanished as soon as the train stopped. She pulled the glove on tighter to settle herself. It bit into the flesh between her fingers.   
“It’s getting worse,” she told him.   
“It always settles once you’re back here, though, doesn’t it?” He asked worried. Medea let out a breath. It steamed before her.   
“It’s frightening now.” She said in a levelled voice.   
“What are you two ladies gossiping about?” Malcolm shortened his stride and fell back to them. Exasperated, Medea ripped off her glove and held Connor’s wrist for a second, then she pulled it back on. They all stared at the black mark left on his pale skin. He brushed off the black, glittering powder and pursed his lips. Medea was looking at her hands, disgusted. Neither Connor nor Malcolm knew what to say, so each took one of her hands, and together they walked. 

Medea grudgingly stayed to the welcoming dinner that night per Connor and Malcolm’s request, but she felt unnerved at the events that had just occurred, and she couldn’t help but gaze to the Ravenclaw table hoping to catch a glimpse of Olympia. Malcolm sat beside her in an almost protective stance, and even Serezha had sensed her discontent and sat watchful on her shoulder. She pulled him to her hands and gave him a little kiss on his little head.   
“Aren’t you just the sweetest baby?” She asked in an uncharacteristically tender voice. Malcolm had to force himself not to laugh.   
After dinner and a warm welcome from Headmaster Longbottom, Connor strayed from the Gryffindor table to say goodnight to them and sneak a morsel of ostrich meat to Serezha.   
Medea and Malcolm lingered, talking in hushed voices as most students filed out. They made their way to Slytherin quarters. Turning a hallway, they caught side of a girl with long, dark brown hair wandering about alone.   
“What d’you reckon is her story?” Malcolm murmured, though they were some ways off.   
“What do you mean?”   
“Well, there might not have been enough room in her friends’ compartments for her, which would be strange enough, but acceptable, I guess. But now here we see her again, walking alone like some sort of ghost.”   
“Maybe she’s just a loner.”   
“She not weird enough not to have any friends.” He pointed out. “Well, thinking better of it, it was a bit strange how she just disappeared after we arrived.” Olympia turned a corner and was out of sight.   
“Well… I might’ve had something to do with it,” Medea admitted guiltily. Malcolm looked at her sharply.  
“What? What could you have possibly done? You didn’t placenta us again, did you?” Medea made a grimace.   
“Merlin’s beard, I hate that term. It isn’t a placenta.”   
“But you did placenta us?” He demanded, entering the Slytherin common room.   
“Lower your voice, you’ll wake Serezha.” Medea sighed, tired and unsure of how to explain herself.   
“I’m sorry, I just had to talk to her about something. Privately.” Malcolm looked dumbfounded, and then a look of realisation dawned on his face.   
“What, you mean like…” he lowered his voice. “Lady things?” Medea tried her hardest not to burst out laughing.   
“Uhm, well. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe tomorrow, yeah? I’m beat.” Malcolm shrugged but smiled at her warmly.   
“Sure, sleep well.” He wasn’t much of a hugger, as a matter of fact neither of them were, but they understood their love language without need of hugging.   
“Night.” 

“Honestly, have you paid any attention since second year?” Medea was a person with near infinite patience, but she often found that Connor was a person with near infinite stupidity.   
“No,” came his curt reply. Malcolm laughed from the other side of the table.   
“Don’t know what you’re laughing at, you hardly passed Potions with Mr Ingram.” Connor laughed at that and Malcolm gave them the finger. “Right, Connor, my love, just…” she hardly knew where to start. They were three weeks into classes and yet she found that Connor needed a revision of fifteen previous years. She walked off to find a specific book and then set it before Connor.   
“Don’t read the introductory chapters, but the rest sums up what you need to know to start studying for this term, I think.” Connor smiled up weakly at her and made a praying motion. She rolled her eyes and nudged his head.   
“I’m going to look for something, and if I come back and you’re mucking about with Malcolm, I’ll make your corneas explode.” Connor huffed.   
“You can’t do that.”   
“Would you like to try my word?” Connor set his head down and opened the book. 

Medea pulled her blue satin gloves tighter on her hands, looking around every other second even though the library was mostly deserted. She headed to the ‘P’ sector. Pansies and Polyjuice, Pat Hyume’s Human Horrors, Pot Patter Pandingulas, she read, head inclined. Potential Dark Children, Vol. I. Just as she reached for it, a veiny, dark hand rested on her shoulder. She’d been so engrossed in her search she hadn’t even realised professor Kalavar had snuck up on her. She immediately turned, hand on her wand by instinct. Funnily enough, Serezha nestled soundly asleep on her shoulder.   
“Funny that you are so easily startled, Ms Drevenis,” spoke Kalavar in her smooth, deep voice.   
“Only you could startle me so, professor.” Medea replied in an equally level voice. Kalavar smiled and looked at the book Medea had been reaching for.   
“That should be in the restricted area,” remarked Kalavar. The back of Medea neck flushed. “Well… would you care to join me for a spot of tea?” 

Medea sat at a comfortable plush chair in professor Kalavar’s study, with an ample view of the school grounds from Kalavar’s wide window. Kalavar had seated herself on her desk, so close to Medea their knees almost touched.   
“Germaphobe?” Asked Kalavar with a taunting smile. Medea’s gloved hands twitched.   
“No, ma’am, only cold.”   
“Ah.” Kalavar sat up. “Some tea, then.” The woman clapped her hands and before them appeared a tea tray with some biscuits. Kalavar was one of the few people Medea regularly interacted with that she was truly intimidated by. She could never understand whether she was friend or foe. Foe. Foe. Foe, foe you daft, wretched girl! Her grandmother’s voice echoed in her mind. Serezha woke.  
“If you don’t mind, professor, may I ask why have you invited me?” Kalavar poured the tea.   
“I’ve been warned of a presence lurking just outside the grounds,” commented Kalavar, “I was asked to keep an eye on it, and found it in the shape…” Kalavar spilled a drop. “Well, a strange shape, suffice it to say.” The woman eyed the girl before her carefully. She missed no expression, but it appeared that Medea had none.   
“And however could I help you, professor?” There was no irritation in her voice, no worry nor fear.   
“I was suggested that we summon your mother,” Kalavar said curtly. Medea’s blood ran cold.   
“For a strange shape?” the girl’s eyes had grown hard, her expression petrified as that of a stone’s. Kalavar stared at her as though she were a candle of a girl, flickering from one state to the next with an odd fluidity. In one moment she seemed still and blue, small and charming - the next she might erupt into flame. No state could predict the next.   
“I think we might speak clearer, Ms Drevenis, if we could.”   
“By all means,” though her words were formal, it seemed almost an attack.   
“We do not know what it might mean, but I’m most reluctant to bring your mother to Hogwarts. I hope you will not take it to the offence, but Dementors and aurors, I believe you will agree, are not good to have on the grounds.” Medea heard her words, but had resolved not to speak unless asked a direct question. Kalavar continued, pulling away from the table.   
“I was asked by the Headmaster to write to the Ministry, requesting assistance, without mention of anyone, and that I did. You might imagine my surprise,” Kalavar moved to the other side of her desk and opened a drawer. “When I received this and nothing else.”   
In her hand, Kalavar held a letter. From Marina Drevenis to Medea Drevenis. Medea took the letter, and Kalavar held her gaze expectantly. She wouldn’t be opening it alone. Whatever her mother had sent, however, was not strictly meant for her eyes, as she’d already involved a third party that could’ve easily intercepted it, if it hadn’t been read already. Medea passed a finger under the envelope and slit it open, removing a small paper. She read it fast and then folded it into her robes.   
Kalavar was staring at her fixedly.  
“Might I assume we shall not be receiving assistance from the Ministry?” She asked.   
Medea pursed her lips.   
“None at all.” 

The two women sat drinking their tea in silence, and when the bitter leaves had settled at the bottom and turned Medea’s unpleasant, she set her cup down and stood.   
“Thank you, professor, for the tea. And the enlightening talk.” Kalavar folded her hands before her and regarded the girl steadily.   
“You’d do well not to meddle with the dark, Medea.” The girl stared, struck. Kalavar dipped a quill in ink and broke her eye contact. “You may go,” she said curtly.   
Medea rushed out, stroking the letter in the pocket. Her mother was not a woman of many words. 

Deal with it yourself.

-Marina

Medea paced nervously, Serezha flying around her shoulders as if copying her.   
“Well, there’s something off about Kalavar,” said Connor, turning her mother’s letter over in his hands as if it were jinxed.   
“How’d you mean?” Malcolm blew out crimson smoke. The three were distributed around a robust tree at the edge of the grounds.   
“Well, its rather odd. How she treated Day, I mean.” Malcolm mulled it over and passed the pink cigarette to Connor.   
“What do you think your mum mean?” Malcolm turned to face Medea, who looked more in another world than their own. “Does she mean you should deal with… the presence, or whatever?”   
“I don’t know,” she replied, wringing her ungloved hands. Black powder billowed from them, falling to the wet grass.   
“That’s insane, she can’t expect you to deal with whatever that thing is,” Connor put in, coughing.   
“She just might,” Medea spat.   
“What’d you mean?”   
“Honestly, don’t you know what her family’s like at this point?” Malcolm rolled his eyes.   
“It might be a test,” muttered Medea.   
“A test?” Weasley sounded outraged.   
“They’re always testing me.”   
“Surely not with something like this.” Medea glared at him.   
“They just might,” Malcolm’s lips curved downwards. “The Drevenises have what I call main character syndrome.” The black powder floating around Medea’s hands became so fine it appeared almost as smoke, and it curled around her fingers as she looked darkly at Malcolm.   
“Well,” he began, realising he’d stepped out of bounds. “It makes sense that they should.”   
“Shut up,” said Weasley and Medea simultaneously.   
She closed her eyes and hands, the powder receding as she deepened her breaths. Finally, she sat beside the two boys and took the cigarette from Connor’s hand. They didn’t speak for a while, only sat in harmonic silence.   
“Well, shouldn’t you be off to practice, Connor?” Malcolm stood, shaking loose earth from his trousers. Connor groaned.   
“Right. Bloody Ravenclaws are impossible.” He looked at Medea and winked.  
“What was that?”   
“What was what?” He asked innocently. “See you later Day, Slytherin scum.”   
“Hope someone knocks you off your broom.” Came Malcolm’s happy reply.


	3. III

Oli had done her best to avoid Lila and Harriet, and she’d illogically convinced herself that perhaps she might be able to avoid them the entire year. She had no such luck.   
Her third week of seventh year Transfiguration had made her life particularly miserable, and she spent her days dreading the class and seriously considering whether she wished to graduate. What use was there of grades or learning if in the end the only use she’d have would be that of brain juice, a girl to squeeze and tell fortunes with? None at all.   
Wrapped in the entrapments of her own mind, Olympia walked the longest way to her classroom, passing students caught in their mindsets without so much as a glance. She hadn’t really minded the solitude that her separation from her friends had provided - in fact, she was grateful for it, she no longer kept up smiles or weak, empty conversations whose only purpose was to keep the air from growing stale around them. Would she have told them of her interaction with Medea? Most likely not, but then again, she wouldn’t have told anyone. Her dreams had ceased since that day on the train - she didn’t even have her usual, incomprehensible, feverish dreams. She slept like the dead. The thought unsettled her, and it was perhaps because of that that she accidentally ran into Harriet’s back. Harriet turned around without much annoyance, but when she noticed it was Olympia, her face curdled. Olympia found herself smack in the middle of a long hallway, alone save for Harriet, Lila, and a group of Hufflepuffs that seemed to be in a great hurry.   
“Never enough for you, huh?” Harriet rolled her eyes and Lila turned to see what she was going on about.   
“Can’t leave us alone?” She asked, bitterly.   
“Sorry, I was really distracted,” Olympia tried to side-step them but Lila blocked her path. Broad-chested and dim-witted, she towered over Olympia and looked down at her.   
“If you can’t leave us alone, why should we leave you alone?”   
Walk away, urged Olympia in her mind. Couldn’t Lila see that her attempts to bury her shame and denial would only make them spring up that much faster? Olympia only wished she wouldn’t have to partake in the girl’s ultimate breakdown, when her lies crumbled around her.   
“I told you it was a mistake - step down,” Olympia said in a quiet but firm tone.   
“Commanding us now, are you?” Harriet had her wand up her sleeve, it was plain to see from the awkward position of her fingers.   
“Let me pass, Anastasia, Drizzela.”   
“I suppose that makes you Cinderella?” Harriet scoffed. Olympia did not want to fight with them, in fact, she didn’t want to address them or even see them at all; but it was true that she bottled a significant amount of venom toward the two oafs, and it was particularly infuriating to have them provoke her when they were so clearly in the wrong.   
“I’m no princess, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say you aren’t ogres.”   
“You little-“ Lila punched her right in the nose. Blood gushed down her lips as she stumbled backwards, Lila holding her hand like a mangled tree root.   
“What’s all this?” Came from behind them. Professor Yfrit was charging down the hall, and Harriet took Lila’s elbow, speeding off before the professor, coincidentally the Head of Ravenclaw house, got a good look at them.   
Professor Yfrit hurried to Lila and clucked her tongue when she saw her bloody face.   
“Dear me,” she said. “I hope you shall be well for the game on Friday.” 

She was. Her nose had been set right in a heartbeat, but her resentment certainly had not died down. Peter Grate, the captain, saw her quiet seething and smirked.   
“Hope you’re saving all that steam pouring out of you ears for Gryffindor,” he remarked.   
“Loads of good it’d do me, I’m static as a tree.” Peter laughed.   
“Come, now, Gatekeeper, you’re our Lord and Saviour.”   
“Don’t call me that,” she said, incapable of keeping a smile from her lips nor from her voice. She’d long since gotten over the feeling that she was cheating by being Keeper as a vate even though there was no direct correlation between the two - no visions, no obvious signs that her nature made her any better at Quidditch. The only thing that was true was that she was eerily good at guessing where the opposing team would try to score, and after a fair amount of Bludgers to the head, she’d stopped feeling guilty at all. Still, though her House’s nickname of Gatekeeper was supposed to be endearing, it didn’t exactly stir up positive emotions within her.   
A sharp whistle set them up in the chill air, and soon enough, the Quaffle had been tossed up, the screams and cheers of the tall crowds around them seeming to inflame it. As a Keeper, and a competent one at that, she did not have much to do until those few crucial seconds the Gryffindors approached her, so she simply watched through her goggles, the light rain dotting her tied hair. The mist was not too bad - certainly not bad enough to cancel the game, but it was still irksome.   
After Peter’s third point and the mad ravings of the crowd, he was cornered by two Gryffindors and forced higher up than Olympia could see. A Gryffindor Beater - not Weasley, but another whose name she could never remember - set a Bludger on him, spinning him out of sight. No one paid the sequence any mind seeing as Reginald Fairfax approached Olympia ravenously, his eyes burning with hatred for her. She was used to hatred from opposing teams. Fairfax lunged, Olympia sent the Quaffle flying back to the other side of the field. Hector, from her team, caught it swiftly, but the Ravenclaw Chasers were just a mark off incompetent without Peter. Olympia looked up and around just as Hector lost the Quaffle. Fairfax raced towards her once more, but she paid him no attention, because a figure was falling from above.   
Peter passed her before she could blink, and Fairfax tossed the Quaffle - rather obviously - into the middle ring. But she was gone from her position, racing after Peter. She caught him by the hem of his shirt a few meters above the ground, the force of it knocking her off her broom and landing atop Peter. With a grunt she rolled off and kneeled beside the fallen boy. Olympia snapped off her goggles and stared at his face. He was fast asleep, looking more dead than alive, but Medea felt for his pulse and found it faint, though very much there. She sighed with relief as professors rushed to Peter. Professor Kalavar pulled her aside and, much to Oli’s surprise, examined her.  
“What are you-?” She began to ask, but was cut short when Kalavar held up the hand she’d used to feel for Peter’s pulse. It was coated in dry black powder, even though the rest of her was wet. Olympia shook her hand and the powder flew off like dark smoke, travelling into the air. Kalavar watched with worry as a nurse took Peter away.   
The game was paused for a moment, the crowds and players in a state of confusion. Olympia stared at her hand and then at Peter’s receding figure. After a few awkward minutes had passed in which the match stood at a standstill, the field was informed that the game would be changed to a later date. The announcer unsteadily attempted to assure them it would all be alright, that the suspension of the match was only a precaution. A dissatisfied grumble rippled through the crowd, and the players slowly descended.   
Weasley landed beside her.   
“You alright?” He asked, peeling off his goggles.   
“I’m fine,” she replied, looking at her other hand and seeing, with some shock and nausea, that it, too was coated in dust. She shook her robes and seemed to be smouldering for a minute from the amount of black that flew from them. Weasley watched with wide, not necessarily shocked eyes.   
“What is it?” She demanded.   
“I- nothing,” he shook his head and hurried past her, broom in hand. 

Olympia hadn’t wanted to tell on Harriet and Lila despite the fact that Yfrit was quite sure it’d been them that had struck her. She hadn’t wanted any further conflict, didn’t want to give their taunting any entity.  
She walked back from the infirmary alone after visiting Peter the day following the match. He’d gotten beaten up too bad in the head to remember anything after the match had begun. He seemed oddly chirpy, as though nothing had happened to him and he’d just gotten loads of candy for simply not remembering something and having a bad headache.   
She was nearly talking to herself, shaking her hands incessantly as if she still had powder on her - some obsessive behaviour she’d picked up after the match - thoughts alone raising the speed of her heart. When Medea caught up to her, it stopped.   
“Olympia,” she called calmly. Oli turned around to face her, the lump caught at her throat preventing her from speaking. Medea stopped a few paces before her.   
“How are you?” She asked in a cool tone.   
“Well,” Olympia answered, noticing that the other girl seemed almost to be examining her.   
“And your friend?”   
“He’ll be alright.”   
“Good.” The two stood facing one another, sizing each other up.   
“Could I help you with something?” Asked Olympia finally, immediately regretting the aggression in her tone. Her regret was made worse by Medea’s tight, dejected smile.   
“No. I just wanted to know you were alright.” Medea bowed her head and strode off. Gods, but she acts a thousand years old sometimes, thought Olympia. As she left, both girls stared at each other’s hands, one gloved, one scrubbed furiously clean of black powder.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you so much for reading this far, I hope you've enjoyed it!   
> If there's anything you don't understand, most things will be cleared up as the story goes along. Feel free to leave a comment as I love to read them :)


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